After Outcry From Its Members, NAACP Decides It Was "Snookered"Beck Defends; Krauthammer Defends; So, Tentatively, Do I

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.

Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.

The fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech. They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm.

You Know... Beck makes a great point here. I am really on Team Beck on this, I think.

Krauthammer just said on Special Report she deserves her job back... and restitution.

The Anchoress brought up this possibility -- that the tape didn't seem complete, and that Sherrod seemed to be building to something that we never heard.

In fact, that does seem to be the case, given that the wife of the farmer helped in this tale is now vouching for her.

That farmer's wife, however, is saying Sherrod is a "friend for life" who saved their family farm from foreclosure.

...

The incident in question, however, took place two decades ago, and the wife of the farmer in question told told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sherrod "kept us out of bankruptcy."

"Her husband told her, 'You're spending more time with the Spooners than you are with me,' " Eloise Spooner, the wife of the farmer, told the AJC. "She took probably two or three trips with us to Albany just to help us out."

Spooner also remarked on CNN this afternoon, Sherrod "helped us save our farm by getting in there and doing all she could do to help us."

Sherrod admits she did in fact give the guy less help than she would have given a black guy (and claims this guy was trying to show he was "superior" -- really? Sounds like she's the one with the superiority problem), but that was 24 years ago, and if she was building to a lesson ("But then I became friends with them and learned" etc.) it makes it a different sort of story, doesn't it?

If the tape has been stripped of that kind of context, this is going to be damaging to Breitbart (even if he didn't strip that context out, but received the tape in that condition), who has been on quite an amazing run and has gotten to be very credible (and, to liberals, frightening).

Not sure about this yet.

Mistake Of Intent On Obama's Part? It should be noted that Breitbart did not release this tape to get Sherrod fired (I mean, "Who?") but to demonstrate the NAACP had racists in its midst.

The problem here is not really Breitbart's -- Breitbart released the tape to establish the NAACP contains racists, and the NAACP made a big spectacle of throwing Sherrod under the bus to refute what is irrefutable.

In other words, the NAACP made the story about Sherrod. When the story had always been about the NAACP.